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No Penny For Your Thoughts

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

Well, it
finally happened: President Obama said something I agree with.

He wants to
get rid of the penny.

A penny for
your thoughts, Mr. President? “The once-cent piece has Lincoln on it, and our
Founding Fathers are no longer relevant.” I’m kidding; he didn’t really say
that – sounds more like something Joe Biden would say. No, the POTUS has –
brace yourself – a practical reason for doing away with the penny, as he said
in an interview: “Anytime we’re spending money on something people don’t
actually use, that’s an example of things we should probably change.”

Well, there
goes most of Congress.

Of course,
people do use pennies, if they use cash at all, because they have to. Part of
that is psychological: pricing something at $4.99 makes people think they’re
getting a bargain, while $5.00 seems like so
much more. Without the penny, retailers might have to price their produce at –
gasp! -- $4.95. Or, more likely, $5.45.

The biggest
argument for getting rid of our smallest coin (well, not physically smallest –
what’s up with that?) is that while a penny is only worth one cent, it costs
almost two and a half cents to produce.

That’s
right, sports fans (to coin a phrase): In 2012, it cost 2.41 cents to make
every 1.0 cent piece. Instead of spending it, you’d make more money melting
your penny down to sell the component metals. Which is why the government made
it a crime to do so. It’s also a crime to take more than $5 in pennies or
nickels out of the country, probably under the assumption that you’re planning
to melt them down. After all, Japanese vending machines don’t take pennies.

Actually, almost
no vending machine takes pennies anymore, another good reason to get rid of
them.

Pennies
used to be made of 95% copper and 5% zinc, but when copper prices started going
up it was changed to only 2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc. Then zinc prices started
going up, in part because China is using the metal more and more to manufacture
stuff that they then sell to us, which makes cents to them.

Despite the
value of their metal, pennies have been outraced by inflation so much that “See
a penny, pick it up,” is now a laugh-inducing phrase, which might be why America
doesn’t seem to be having much luck these days. Instead of using a piggy bank,
young people don’t think for a second about tossing them at each other, and
don’t bother picking them up afterward. After all, what are they good for
except for weighing down your pockets? What machine of any type takes pennies,
these days?

(I’m told
there’s such a thing as “penny slots” in casinos. Come on! Go to the nickel
machines, you penny pinchers.)

Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand have already stopped making pennies, under the
theory that a penny saved by not making a penny is a penny earned. Which you
wouldn’t earn in those countries, because they’re not making it.

American
Army and Air Force base stores have rounded their prices up or down to the
nearest 5%, essentially nickel and diming the penny to death.

On the
other hand, the zinc lobby thinks getting rid of pennies would be a terrible
idea. I wonder why? Yes, there are actually people fighting to keep the penny,
and some of their arguments make a bit of sense – the main one being that retailers
will round up, not down, leading to inflation. The group Americans for Common
Cents (I know, but what can you do?) points out that the penny also has a cultural
and historical significance.

(Full disclosure:
I collect what pennies, which were manufactured from 1909 to 1956, and I can
only assume their value would increase if the government stopped producing new coins.
As it is, most of my wheat pennies – just like the modern ones – are worth up
to twice their face value.)

NBC News,
in one of those moronic clichés that make my teeth grind, points out that the
total cost of minting pennies was “only” $58 million last year – less than
one-tenth of a percent of federal spending.

Oh, is that
all? For two cents, I’ll clobber the next person that makes such an idiotic
statement, with a sock full of … dimes. If anything followed by “million” is
“only”, then what harm would there be if the government gave me some? Yeah,
that’s what I thought. A million dollars starts with a penny, and a million
savings starts with “only”.

I like that, let me write that
down.

By saving
the penny, we’re being penny wise and pound foolish. So there you go, I’m
walking a mile is Barry Obama’s penny loafers. Just one thing puzzles me: I
thought he liked change?

I suspect that when the time comes, I'll start hoarding pennies under the assumption they'll someday be worth something as collector's items. Holding onto things I should let go of is one of my things.

I can see how that might be a problem -- like with the manuscript I have in which my heroine's problems would all be solved if she just used her cell phone. Too bad when I wrote the first draft they didn't have cell phones!

Boy, I've been all for getting rid of pennies for years. Way to go, Obama. I really don't think anyone will miss them, except those penny pinchers at the casinos (which, like you, I've never understood) Woo-hoo! I won 5 pennies! (or would it be 4.99% in pennies.

Great musings, Mark. I agree that the 1 cent increment is useless. But I have to wonder about the turmoil it would create in the book industry. 99 cent books make $1 books seem so much more upscale and flashy by comparison. :-D